Writing Archives - Page 4 of 6 -

10 Days of Mama

November 8, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

It’s been 10 days. 11, I guess. Today is the 11th day.

He had the flu about a week and a half ago – 11 days ago, I guess – and we did all the usual things through a day or so with a sick little boy. I wore my Mama Who Has Been Barfed On badge again with pride and enjoyed the cuddles – warm and soft and in the normal range of worrisome. Which is to say not terribly.

Then the abdominal pain started and by 4 am a week ago Sunday we were in the ER. No parents want to learn their child’s appendix has burst the hard way.

The ER was quiet that morning. No one else in the pediatric area but us. Waybuloo is only slightly less weird at four in the morning; those Brits were definitely on something.

No appendectomy required. A bit dehydrated, even though he drinks Pedialyte like it’s juice, and home we went.

That was only the second in a series of sleepless nights.

Tonight will be the 11th night. We have pushed through a brief road trip (if a very long drive – there and back in six days – can be considered brief), a house purchase, and a few quick visits.

We are home, but he is not better. He has been, off and on. Enough that we felt it was okay to make the trip. Enough that he played in the snow on Friday. Enough that he went to school yesterday.

But he is not better, and the morning at school was apparently weepy with repeated requests for Mama. When Grandma and Grandpa picked him up, he went home with them and slept. For more than an hour. (Very unusual.) Daddy had to go and pick him up.

Mama came home, and the pieces of velcro connected again. We have been this way – attached – for 10 days. Or 11 now, I guess. He wants me and stays close, his soft hair tickling my chin and his small fingers rubbing my wrist.

This is what I know:

His toddler tummy fits right in the palm of my hand.

It is warm and soft and it soothes me.

Rubbing his tummy only sometimes soothes him.

He has a spot – a specific place he likes to be. Between my chin and collarbone, shoulder tucked under my right arm as it wraps around him.

This has been his place for months now. It’s where he comes when he wants a cuddle. It’s where he sleeps when he’s sick. It’s where he fits.

Except he doesn’t. He’s getting tall, and his gangly limbs struggle to find a place to land. His head bumps against my chin as he looks for his spot, refusing to acknowledge that he doesn’t fit the same way as before.

He wants me to fix him, except I can’t. He’s blocked, I think, so nothing terribly worrisome now either except that my baby’s in pain. We’ve tried the usual remedies – applesauce, prune juice, warm baths. We’ve tried worse, and had it work, except not fully. And now, on the 11th day, he doesn’t want any of that.

He just wants Mama.

Tomorrow Daddy will take him to the doctor to see if she can help. Mama will go to work, again, and turn on the bright lights, again, in hopes they will keep her awake. She will take ibuprofen for her shoulder – the one that loves holding her boy but is tired, and is sending waves of stabbing pain running up and down her neck between her ears and her shoulder in protest.

Tomorrow is day 12. He might still want Mama, but hopefully, for everyone’s sake, he won’t need her quite so much.

Freely written and linked up with:

Filed Under: Hard things, Motherhood, Writing · Tagged With: call for back-up, family, mom's instinct, my wish for you, sleep

On the Move: Hanging Out with Punky Brewster

October 14, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I’ll admit it: I was a total Punky Brewster fan. She was spunky. I like spunky. Well, Punky Brewster’s back…sort of.

Soleil Moon Frye (the actress who played Punky) is now quite the social media maven. She’s also a mom (and a gorgeous one at that – I wonder if she’d trade hair with me…?) who has written a book about motherhood. It has what I consider a totally fantastic title:

“Happy Chaos.” Is that not motherhood summed up in two words?

In any case, she also has a website – a community, actually – about motherhood. And guest who’s guest posting there today?

ME!! (Holy Macanoli!)

I wrote about a problem I have. Due to an unfortunate incident last winter involving wimpy west coast snow my son thinks I don’t know how to build a snowman. Except I totally do. So yeah, this is a problem.

Come on over to Moonfrye and read The Snowman Test of Motherhood.

Filed Under: Guest posts, Happy things, Writing · Tagged With: toddlers are weird

Message in an Ebook

October 7, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

The evening quiet of a house after a toddler goes to sleep is like a grand piano after a concert. The sudden silence pokes you, pushes you, saying, “Notice me.” And I do – aware that the individual parts of the house, like the ebony and ivory of a piano, resonated not long ago with notes both high and low from being crashed upon in the music of life with a small child. The tones echo in my head, growing dimmer and dimmer until all I can hear is silence.

The silence, in my experience, is temporary. New noises quickly take over the available space in my brain. Thoughts of the day, big decisions, what ifs.

It was in this frame of mind that I wearily washed my face and climbed into bed the other night. After my regular browse through the social sphere – commenting on blogs, tweeting, laughing at jokes on Facebook – I shushed the noises and turned to Kindle.

Joanne Bamberger

I’ve been reading through Welcome to My World, the ebook I contributed to. I’m enjoying the stories by women whose voices I know – honest, poignant, and funny – and revelling in getting to know those I’ve yet to encounter in the wide world of blogging. That night I reached chapter 9 – Building My Empire by Joanne Bamberger (aka Pundit Mom). I love her writing and her point of view never fails to intrigue. She’s far more politically savvy than I, so I looked forward to what I expected would be a different perspective from mine.

But that, of course, is not how the Universe works.

Reading about the path of a woman whose (current) career I admire, I got to the part about how she ended up a stay-at-home mom when an expected opportunity didn’t materialize after she brought her daughter home from China.

Oh, I thought.

Joanne writes about how the loss of her professional identity affected her and how, through the introduction to blogging, she became a work-from-home writer mom.

Hmm, I thought.

I’ve wondered if I could do that. Okay, truth: I want to do that. I know I can but I’ve wondered if I will be able to make it work.

“I’d love to see more women explore this third way of combining motherhood and professional fulfillment,” Joanne writes.

She offers her advice on how to do that. And what do you know – it’s what I, too, believe to be true. But I’m not going to give away her secret – you’ll have to buy it for yourself to find out. (It’s only $6.99!)

(Joanne, I’m up for the challenge! Thank you for the sage advice and a beautifully written essay.)

Filed Under: Book reviews, Happy things, Motherhood, Writing · Tagged With: blogging, community, The Universe

I’m Not Alone, You’re Not Alone

October 3, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

I’ve never struggled with depression.

Except… Oh wait. There was that time in the last semester of my first year of university when I spent a lot of time in bed. A LOT. I stayed there and didn’t want to get up, though I didn’t think much of it at the time.

Then when I was in my 20s, I got sick of feeling sad and hopeless all the time and started logging things. What I ate, exercise, weather – you name it, I put it into a carefully crafted spreadsheet, and it was all mapped against my mood. Eventually the sum of the things that made me feel better – getting enough exercise, sunlight, eating well – led me to feel better overall.

Those times, I wasn’t diagnosed with depression. I never even had a conversation with a doctor about it. I always hated that label. Oddly, though, I remember being asked to fill out a self-identification form for a previous job. “Are you a visible minority?” No. “Are you Aboriginal?” No. “Do you have a disability?” A very small voice in my head piped up. “Does depression count?” I knew it was there, though I was never willing to admit it. (I checked no.)

The excerpt above is from an essay I wrote about depression that appears in anthology called Not Alone: Stories of Living With Depression, which is now available on Amazon. (I know! On Amazon twice in one week! I’m feeling lucky.)

The book is edited by Alise Wright who, in my experience since submitting my piece for consideration, is smart, kind, and funny.

Here’s one of the endorsements for the book:

“When our journeys take us down dark and unfamiliar paths, we don’t need leaders with all the answers; we need friends with open arms. Not Alone brings together the voices of many such friends in essays that are alive with wisdom, honesty, humor, and grace. What makes this book so powerful is the diversity of the stories shared within it. No two journeys through depression are exactly the same, and yet no one needs to travel alone. What a joy it is to see such an impressive assemblage of smart, talented, and creative writers speaking words of hope into the world!” —Rachel Held Evans, popular blogger and author of Evolving in Monkey Town.

Isn’t that great? It totally makes me want to read the other stories.

I never thought I’d be writing this openly about Depression (with a capital D), but this book is about exactly what I know, since starting this blog, to be so important: making people feel less alone.

Welcome to My World

September 25, 2011 by Farewell Stranger ·

Funny things sometimes happen when you create a life list. Not just things like dyeing one’s hair blue, but things like having weird conversations with oneself trying to determine if something counts as having fulfilled something on one’s life list.

In this case, the debate centres around #56 on my list: Write a book and have it published.

I haven’t done that (yet) but I did do something related that I’m big-smile, dancing-for-joy excited about. I wrote a piece about motherhood that was accepted for a book, and on Friday that book was officially released on Amazon!

Seriously, can I just revel in that for a minute? We were just about to have dinner on Friday when I saw the note from the editor, so I clicked on over and, oh mah lord, there’s my name in the contributor list. On Amazon!

Okay, I’m done revelling. For now.

In non-squeeing seriousness, this is really exciting for me. It’s exciting because I wrote something honest about an aspect of motherhood that was – is – hard for me. And it’s been published in a book along with stories (some funny, some serious, some both) from other writers sharing their perspectives on stay-at-home moms vs. working moms. Neither role is easy, and any mother will relate to the experiences shared in this collection.

I think sharing these experiences is important. There are those who dismiss “mommy bloggers” as…what? Fluffy? Inconsequential? I don’t even really get what the eye rolling is about because, in my experience, mommy bloggers are not a homogenous group and there are plenty making quite a difference in this world, thank you very much. (I could, and probably will, write a whole post about this…)

Anyway, I don’t even consider myself a mommy blogger, and that’s not actually what this book is about. This is a book about the choices we make as mothers – or the choices we’re forced to make, in some cases – and how those choices affect who we are. This topic digs deep into the core of women’s identities.

So yes, I’m proud to have my voice represented alongside the others who contributed to this book.

Welcome to My World is an ebook, and it won’t cost you much more than a fancy cup of coffee. I’d love it if you bought it and tell me what you think. You can get it on Amazon (for Kindle) or on Barnes & Noble for Nook.

If you don’t have an ereader you can download one free:

Kindle for PC
Kindle for Mac
Nook (various devices)

So there you have it. If I had “get published” on my life list I’d be checking it off. (Maybe I’ll add it just so I can do that…)

Huge thanks to the book’s editor, Sarah Bryden-Brown for including my piece, and to the book’s sponsor, Giggle (even though their stuff gives me serious baby fever).

(Whee, I’m published!)

Filed Under: Happy things, Motherhood, Writing · Tagged With: firsts, gratitude, Life list